


gone for too long

by minyardandrew



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Long-Distance Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7771522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minyardandrew/pseuds/minyardandrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrew’s been feeling really frustrated and tired of exy as of late, more so than usual, he notes as he lights up a cigarette and begins to walk the block around the hotel the team has them staying in.</p><p>None of the energy the Foxes had last year has translated into his new team, and it’s not like he has much passion for the sport internally. It’s a means to an end. A profession. Something he is good at. Something he can do with Neil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gone for too long

**Author's Note:**

> this was written in collaboration with al, you can find the original post and edit [here](http://reneewvlkers.tumblr.com/post/148045557980/a-collab-with-francis-ganseyiil-for-the-wonderful).

Andrew jumps out of the cab he called from the exy stadium, feeling more energetic than he usually does after playing a game. As per usual, he didn’t really try all that hard, and ended up playing less than half the game since he’s the backup goalie for his pro team. He didn’t let any goals in or anything, but wasn’t exactly putting his heart and soul into it.

He’s been feeling really frustrated and tired of exy as of late, more so than usual, he notes as he lights up a cigarette and begins to walk the block around the hotel the team has them staying in.

None of the energy the Foxes had last year has translated into his new team, and it’s not like he has much passion for the sport internally. It’s a means to an end. A profession. Something he is good at. Something he can do with Neil.

Neil. He’s probably a main reason he has been feeling like this too; he hasn’t played with Neil since last season and it’s hard to get a connection with the strikers on his new team when they are already chummy with the other goalie. He isn’t really important. He is there so the other goalie can have a break.

He feels the itch to call Neil, but decides against it. He doesn’t know why he wants to call him so badly. He’s probably busy doing something like practice with Kevin, or micromanaging the baby Foxes. Captain things.

Emotions are a strange thing, Andrew concludes as he drops his cigarette to the sidewalk, only to light another. They taste like what Neil would if he was here and kissing him right now, like Andrew wishes he were. He doesn’t know why he misses him so much. He’s just a person. He is just a person and he has too much influence over him and it frustrates Andrew beyond belief. He wishes he could go back to the day he met Neil Josten and redo it, make himself recognize what a threat the boy was and change the outcome.

 _“This isn’t worthless.”_  
“There is no ‘this’. This is nothing.”  
“And I am nothing, and as you’ve always said, you want nothing.”

What a mistake. A liability. He would do anything for Neil and the idea sickens him. What has he turned into? One of those characters from a romance novel who tells the other that they would die for them? Why does the thought of dying for Neil Josten feel like something that could potentially happen? Something he knows he would do, without a second thought?

Andrew is no stranger to protecting people, but Neil has and is bringing out a whole new level of self-destructive and life-threatening tendencies. He tries to think of something he wouldn’t do for Neil if he asked, and fails.

He begins to head back to the hotel, feeling no better from the two smokes.

If there is no way of getting rid of Neil, of going back in time and skipping the day he ever met that red-haired walking disaster, then he needs to speak to him. See him. Breathe him. It’s been over a month since he has last seen him in person, and he feels like kicking himself for thinking that’s been too long.

With a sense of urgency, he enters the hotel and punches the button for the elevator with his fist.

He’ll tell his team he can’t make practice tomorrow; they don’t have another game until next week anyway. Fuck exy.

He needs to see Neil Josten.

 

It’s a five hour flight from Seattle to North Carolina. It costs almost six hundred dollars too, and he can already tell he’s going to get shit from Neil for it but he doesn’t care. He books it on his laptop as he packs up his few belongings from the hotel room he didn’t even get to use, telling his roommate, Bernard, to not tell the team he is gone until the morning. Bernard doesn’t seem to care that he’s even leaving. Andrew likes Bernard.

He takes yet another cab, this time to the airport. His flight is at 11:45 pm, so he will be landing at around 5:00 am his time, which is 2:00 am Neil’s time, not including the hour bus drive to Palmetto. Great.

 

By the time he gets to Palmetto, it’s 6:30 am in Seattle, and Andrew’s eyes feel like they are made of sawdust. He had to walk from the bus stop 20 minutes away from Palmetto, and it took way longer than necessary due to his exhaustion and the cramped plane ride making his legs feel like actual jello. Plus he was smoking the entire time which didn’t help things.

He has a stolen key which gets him through the front door, and he takes the stairs up to the roof without bothering to knock on Neil’s door first. He might even be out with Kevin practicing exy.

He better not be or Andrew will burn this tower down.

He settles down on the part of the roof that has the best view of the campus, and opens his cell and punches in his speed dial (10) for Neil.

It takes Neil almost 7 rings to pick up the phone, and when he does, it’s at least ten seconds of silence before he hears a muffled, “‘Drew?”.

Andrew feels like he would cry if that was a thing he did, or if his eyeballs weren’t, y’know, made of sawdust.

“Hey junkie. You in bed?”

“Yeah,” Neil whispers around a yawn. Andrew can hear him moving to get out of bed, probably to not wake up Kevin.

“Are you okay? How did the game go?”

“It went okay. Can you do me a favour, Abram?”

“Yes. Of course,” Neil says, his voice slightly panicked. “What is it? What did you do?”

“Can you perhaps come up to the roof? It’s very lonely up here all by myself.”

It takes Neil a second to understand, but when he does, he hangs up the phone. Andrew laughs out loud.

About five minutes or so later a disheveled sweat-pant-and-hoodie-clad Neil Josten comes bursting out of the door to the roof, with his comforter wrapped around him like that will somehow bring the sleep with him.

He speed walks over to where Andrew is sprawled and essentially collapses on top of him, blanket and all, squirming until he can get his face into Andrew’s neck where he immediately begins taking deep breaths. Andrew wraps one arm around him pulling him closer and onto his lap, and the other goes into his curls near the back of his neck.

They stay like that for a moment before Neil pulls back and whispers, “You were gone for too long.”

“Why else would I be here?”

And then they were kissing.

And then they were kissing, and there was more kissing, and Andrew felt like his lips were going to fall off and his mind was made of cotton candy.

Neil’s face was splotched and covered in saliva, as per usual, and this normally causes Andrew to make fun of him, but instead he simply wipes it off with the sleeve of his sweater before pulling him closer. Neil stuck his head back into his shoulder crevice, curling into Andrew’s warmth like a cat.

“I missed you,” Andrew hears himself whisper and internally curses himself.

Neil immediately pulls away to look him in the eyes at this, checking to see if he’s poking fun or not. Realizing he wasn’t, his brows furrow, he pulls back even further to ask, “Did something happen?”

“No. I just got back to my hotel after my game and knew I couldn’t stay there. Bernard isn’t a terrible roommate or anything, but he is not nearly as entertaining as you and your feeble attempts at being a functioning member of society. “ He pauses then, and moves a hand to brush a hair out of Neil’s face that moves right back immediately. He sighs, and admits, ”I haven’t slept.”

Neil’s face clouds with this, the brutal honesty Andrew usually uses as a weapon but is instead only disarming himself, paired with a last minute attempt to cover it up with sarcasm. He knows there is something wrong and that he wants to say something or at least show Neil this, but doesn’t know how.

After another moment of silence, Neil whispers, “You should come to my bed and go to sleep.”

“No.”

“You are scaring me, Andrew.”

“Why? Because I actually made an effort to see you face-to-face?”

They both freeze.

“That wasn’t fair,” Neil says, pinching the bridge between his eyes. “You know I can’t leave that often.”

“No,” Andrew agrees, “no it wasn’t. I know that.”

After a moment, he tries again. “I just felt it was necessary to say…” he begins, trailing off, looking up at the stars, avoiding looking at Neil as much as he possibly can before clearing his throat and saying, “that this is something… not nothing.”

“I’ve always known that,” Neil replies softly.

“I have too. Just because I don’t say it doesn’t mean I don’t think it.” He looks back at Neil with this, his blue eyes reflecting in the moonlight making him want to shiver. He doesn’t.

“I don’t need you to say anything, Minyard. I can read your silences.”

And with that, Andrew can feel that nagging piece inside him from before begin to thaw.

They sit looking at the stars, and each other, for a few seconds more before Neil kisses his forehead and moved to stand up. Andrew helps him climb out of his lap, and wrap the tattered comforter around his body again. It’s the same one he got when he moved into Fox Tower, and Andrew has been bugging him to replace it for months, but it’s so authentically Neil and its texture feels like home.

They walk hand in hand down to Neil’s bed, where Andrew quickly falls asleep to the scent of Neil Josten and light fingertips running through his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Works inspired by this one: [prompt by _nothingneil_](http://nothingneil.tumblr.com/post/148964919895/loosely-inspired-by-this-fic-on-ao3more-his)


End file.
